The overall long-term objective of this proposal is to develop safe methodologies to study the molecular pathogenesis of EBOV in vivo and to exploit the emerging information to develop prophylactic strategies and treatment modalities. The proposed research will: 1) Provide safe and flexible animal models to study EBOV virulence genes in vivo, 2) identify the critical viral gene(s) necessary for EBOV pathogenesis and determine their underlying mechanism(s), and 3) identify novel diagnostics markers and therapeutic targets for the treatment of EBOV infection.
